In this article, Go Mobile explains what people do in digital marketing and what you need to do to get into the industry. Spoiler: you don't need to sell your soul.
Marketing is not just selling and profiting from it. It involves the creation of strategic chains, hypothesis testing, and the generation of creative solutions. The main task of a marketer is to use all available tools to promote a brand and increase sales.
We can divide marketing tools into two main categories: ideas and distribution channels. At first, a marketer needs to come up with a description of product benefits and select the most appropriate channels for it. Then, a marketing message needs to be adapted to each channel.
However, digital marketing is constantly developing, so the rules have changed. Along with creativity and distribution channels concepts like targeting, big data, and artificial intelligence became extremely important. Technologies are the key to information that lets us precisely calculate the effectiveness of an ad campaign, define target audience segments, characteristics, and behavior, optimize the placement, and create a promotional strategy.
These capabilities made digital marketing the most prioritized and at the same time the most complex sphere of marketing.
What does a digital marketer do?
A digital marketer promotes brands and attracts audiences by using digital tools like social networks, e-mail, advertising on search engines and websites, bloggers. The standard process of working with any of these tools involves building a strategy, developing creatives, launching advertising campaigns, testing hypotheses, analysis, optimization.
In addition to being creative, you have to work (a lot) in Excel.
Where to begin?
There are several options.
In an agency, you can try yourself in different tasks, and most importantly, in a variety of projects. In an agency, you can gain experience of working with different businesses, tools, and channels. Here you have more chances to figure out what you like and decide on the direction of your career.
In an agency, you can choose not only a marketing position that requires planning and/or launching campaigns but also other positions. For example, account manager, sales manager, strategist, analyst, or project manager.
Working for a brand is perfect for people who like to multitask and focus on only one product. You can gain a profound knowledge of how to promote a specific type of business and how to use tools that are the most relevant to it.